In the field of remote health monitoring, systems have been developed to monitoring the activity of a user in a dwelling. For example, in various systems, an individual's activities can be monitoring using a number of sensors.
Activity monitoring systems include motion sensors, for example, that are connected to a base control system that monitors areas within the dwelling for movement. When a lack of movement is indicated, the system indicates the lack of movement to a remote assistance center that can contact a party to aid the individual. However, not all inactivity indicates that an individual is in need of assistance. For example, an individual can be sitting in a chair for a prolonged period, or lying in bed. These periods may be sufficient to initiate an alert for third party response, but may not actually be an emergency.
Many of the current sensors marketed for the detection of a person occupancy status can be complex, expensive, and line powered, and use a proprietary computer interface for calibration or data collection. Other occupancy detection systems use switch type sensors. The switch type sensors have not been found to be a reliable detection of occupancy as it is difficult if not impossible to calibrate the sensor to the application. In a bed occupancy detection system, switch type sensors may work in a typical box-spring bed, but may not switch and/or switch intermittently when loaded in a luxury mattress installation where the loading is better spread over the bed structure, thus limiting the amount of force applied to the sensor. Switch type sensors may not have a hysteresis band between the load and unload force and have been found to switch on/off frequently in a situation where the occupant moves frequently and/or where the application is near the force level needed to activate the switch, thus causing difficulty in analyzing and using the sensor data from the occupancy detection switch in an activity monitoring system.